Sporting What-Ifs are never fun, no matter the context. But there is something about the What-If that arrives because of injury, because an ankle snapped or a knee popped or a shoulder zapped that lasts longer, stings greater, haunts more completely.

Mets fans shouldn’t be there with Matt Harvey, not yet. Monday’s revelation of a partially torn UCL in his pitching elbow certainly can’t be identified as good news, but even if Harvey requires Tommy John surgery and misses all of 2014, he’s likely to get another crack at restoring his career in full. And anyway, it was unlikely the Mets were going to reserve time in the Canyon of Heroes next year, anyway.

HUNGER DANGS: Mets fans always will wonder how 2006 would have played out if Duaner Sanchez hadn’t gotten the munchies in Miami.
Besides, Mets fans know the agony of the ill-timed injury all too well. In no particular order, here are some of the teams around here who will forever wonder what might have been if only all their parts had remained in working order the past few decades:

The 2006 Mets

In this space not long ago, we talked about how Duaner Sanchez’s ill-fated late-night food run upended that season and, really, everything that has followed since. And Carlos Beltran, fairly or (it says here) unfairly, always will be the lasting picture of this disappointment because he famously kept the bat on his shoulder.

But in many ways, the Mets were sunk before those playoffs ever began because in the course of a couple of weeks, their rotation blew up. Pedro Martinez was lost in late August thanks to a torn rotator cuff. And the day before the NLCS with the Dodgers, Orlando Hernandez tore a calf muscle while running in the outfield. Blame Beltran. But if the Mets had been whole, it probably never would have come down to that forever curveball.

The 1999 Knicks

Maybe he was too old to make a real impact. Maybe he was too beaten up. Maybe David Robinson and Tim Duncan would have taken turns torturing his 36-year-old body. But the Knicks’ miracle run through the ’99 playoffs — still as inspiring an underdog run as we’ve had from a New York team dating to the ’69 Mets — will forever be trampled by the memory of Patrick Ewing’s Achilles keeping him out of the Finals.

Logic says the Spurs were the better, younger, deeper team. But so were the Pacers, and so were the Hawks, and so were the Heat, and the Knicks had dispatched all three, thanks largely to a mojo that only was becoming more magical the deeper into June they went. Until Patrick went down.

The 2007 Giants

Should self-inflicted injuries not count? The fact is, the Giants were the best team in the NFL for 11 weeks that year — and it wasn’t close — and looked as sure a bet as any team to make a serious run at a repeat … until Plaxico Burress visited the Latin Quarter nightclub Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe the Giants were due to backslide, since prosperity rarely lasts for 17 weeks in the NFL. But we’ll never know for sure.

The 2004 Yankees

Yes, we tend to overlook this because the Red Sox came back from the dead and because most of the city was too numb to think clearly afterward, but this was the year the Yankees only had Jason Giambi — still in his chronological prime, only 33 years old — for half a season, and for zero at-bats in the ALCS.

Tony Clark and John Olerud shared first base, and while both were maybe two of the most pleasant men to ever play for both New York teams, both were miserable in the series: a combined 5-for-33 with two extra-base hits. A small point, you say? Maybe. But across four losses, most of them excruciatingly tight, it’s hard to believe Giambi’s mighty swing wouldn’t have come in handy.

HUNGER DANGS: Mets fans always will wonder how 2006 would have played out if Duaner Sanchez hadn’t gotten the munchies in Miami.
Whack Back at Vac

Joe Orafino: David Wright = Don Mattingly.

Vac: Wright already has one more playoff win. But I think he’d be more than happy to pick up an ’85 Mattingly season one of these years … with or without the mustache.

Mike Gijanto: Well, I’ve waited two weeks to hear Johnny Damon say “Oh yeah, the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox World Series wins are also tarnished.”

Vac: Maybe old Johnny’s afraid of the effects of lingering Roid Rage among the Idiots who were on the juice in those

days.

@Cousin_Chip: Since the Mets have said all along that 2014 is the season they can spend $$$, I’ve waited patiently. Next year is 2014. No more excuses.

@MikeVacc: Almost every Mets fan I know has shaken off their post-Harvey depression to recall Fred Wilpon’s promise. The team — and its brass — had better be listening, and paying attention.

Guy Miller: When I think about this break between Brian Cashman and A-Rod, I can’t help but picture A-Rod at Cashman’s house, slumped in a lounge chair while Cashman stands over him, Lake Tahoe visible through the window. After a long pause, Cashman says, “You’re nothing to me now, Alex …” If I were Alex, I’d decline any invite to go fishing with Cashman’s son.

Vac: And all the while Randy Levine is saying, “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel …”

Vac’s Whack

Here’s a helpful hint for a certain pundit in this town who thinks it’s fun to poke fun at a certain governor’s physical shortcomings: If that certain pundit truly wants people to only “pick on someone their own size,” that certain pundit’s targets will be limited to Peter Dinklage, Danny DeVito and R2-D2.

* This NFL concussion settlement reminds me of Henry Hill meeting Paulie at the end of “Goodfellas”: “170K he gave me …. $170K for a lifetime.”

* So all the folks who thought Bill Belichick was some kind of sinister genius when he picked up Tim Tebow … wait, never mind. He’s still a sinister genius. In the nicest way possible, of course.

* Alex Rodriguez looked at the 30-minute suspension that Johnny Football was given and he had to think he chose the wrong line of work, right?